Warning, contains details about the contents of Spotty's Kilt, and a strong argument both in favor of, and against, bifurcated garments.

A little bit of back story. I've got embarrassing (in the "geez, I look terrible!" embarrasing way) pictures of most of my friends on my website. I'm not planning to take them down, they make me smile. twistdbutterfly doesn't like her picture taken, and I've got a few really bad ones of her.

I'd spent the last few days with some very tactile people lunging for my sparkly shirt, velvet shirt, antlers, teeth, hair, fingernails, whatever, to go "ooh! Sparkly/soft/pointy/fluffy/shiny!" So my personal space was somewhat subjective today.

Sdocat, KT Kat, Badger, Butterfly and I went to Excalibur Faire to see the sights, do some shopping, and give April a ride back to Austin. Not much shopping--Butterfly got some fudge, I picked up a new heavy Renfest belt, et cetera.

Near the front of Excalibur Faire, they have a large fake rock with a sword embedded in it. Sometimes the sword comes out, even a five-year-old can pull it out if some condition or another is met (not "king of England," no matter what Badger says). Sdocat tries to pull it out, and naturally, I start taking pictures. Butterfly's here, and I thought it would be fun to get a picture of her taking the sword out, and she knows I have Mr. Camera, so it's a no-go. I say that I'll drop one of the pictures from my website for the shot, and she takes me up on it. Naturally, the next thing I say is that I have no intention of taking any of my pictures down.

I'm going somewhere with this, I swear. I'm just setting myself up for weird karma and the endless ribbing I've gotten on this.

I'm "costume light" right now. I'm wearing my tattered black leather jerkin, wolf tee, combat boots and my kilt. I've gotten a few comments on the kilt, and someone just grabbed my hand to stare at my fingernails (black nail polish from the day before). So having someone stride purposefully toward me and bend down to grab the hem of my kilt, I can accept as being "normal" based on previously established reality paradigms.

This sort of thing happens to everybody, right? Good.

Before I can really process what's going on, this person--a really nice-looking petite gothy girl in black velvet--really, this is sounding a bit like a letter to PlayRennie magazine--runs her hand up my leg. My brain shuts down, my body saying "oh, this is different," my victorian mind saying "....and it's not happening, thank you!" And then, in the inevitability of a bad filk song, up my kilt, to grab onto my kilt-covered briefs. She says, "You really need to learn how to wear a kilt," and yanks down.

Moving with the speed of affronted dignity, I catch one leg of my underpants through the fabric of my celtly man-skirt. "Hang on, I do need those!"

I'm not really comfortable with the whole "regimental" thing, it's awkward in a heavy wind. "Don't be silly." "No, seriously."

"Is this your girlfriend? How about her?" Points to Butterfly and Kat. "No? Well, then--" Sound of ripping cotton.

She draws close to me, and we engage in a brief embrace-dance, close with a quarter-second kiss, which probably would have been graceful if we hadn't both been holding onto my underwear. She steps away with another rip of cotton, we briefly circle each other like cats (albeit one straight-laced and very shy cat, who doesn't really like losing undergarments in a crowded public forum).

I don't remember the dialog after that, it was brief, colored by warring parts of my brain wanting to play along with the scene and the other part really wanting the usual levels of control it has over circumstances. After a few narrow passes and a partially unlaced bodice, she walks away with a modest scrap of my Hanes 32-34s between her teeth.

For those that enjoy me being put in awkward situations, Sdocat managed to get many of the plays of this odd little scene on camera. While playing a little more closely to my personal anxieties, this was an improvement over Sholo the Nubian rattling my head back and forth.

Anyway, I know, this happens to everyone. Butterfly is still laughing at me.

Butterfly: "You are definately one of the top ten people that deserve to have their underwear stolen at a renaissance festival."

The only way I can really prepare for suddenly having strange women removing my underpants would be to adjust the fact that, somehow, after years in the Camarilla and getting on toward a year with the furries, I can still blush. I feel that any adjustment of my undergarment status would be hasty at this juncture.

I'm going to include every damn picture Sdocat took, even if they're unflattering, because while I don't think I have "good deed/bad deed" karma coming at me, I DEFINATELY have some bad camera karma. Karmera.

Oh and I'll stop laughing at you when you take down the picture of me like you said you would :) Until then (sung to the tune of children's jeers) "Spotty has torn underwear, Spotty has torn underwear."

It only happens if you hope and pray nothing like it will ever happen. Life is rarely so kind as to give us what we think we want. Try joining a monestary; the strange girls should come out of the woodwork within a week.